Recipe: Home-made crack ice cream.

• Y'know, maybe SixApart have a point.

• Pavarotti died this morning. Bugger.

Last night, redcountess went to Alan Cumming's Arse Exposed Live On Stage The Bacchae with mirrorshard, ruthi and apiphile. So arkady, Freda and I had a quiet night in and Arkady decided to turn a spare pint of cold coffee into YUMMY TASTY CRACK. Laborious but wondrous.

Ingredients:

• A pint of cold coffee (proper 568mL Imperial pints, not pissy little 'Merkin pints)
• A pint of double cream
• About half a pound of sugar
• A large mixing bowl
• A four quid hand mixer from Tesco. A blender won't do as it won't get the air in. If you have a mixer that includes its own bowl and you can just set it going, double the times.

1. Pour the cream into the bowl. Stir in about half the sugar (so it doesn't fly everywhere when you mix it).

2. Mix slowly for about ten minutes. Your goal is to get air into the cream and thicken it into a whipped aerated mass.

3. Pour the coffee in, mixing in as you go. Stir in the rest of the sugar.

4. Mix slowly for another twenty minutes. Longer if you're not sick of it yet. Mix, mix, mix. The more mixing, the more air and the finer the bubbles.

5. When you're thoroughly tired of this and your arm's about to fall off, put the stuff in the freezer.

By morning you should have an excuse to have ice cream for breakfast. Because if you eat this stuff after six in the evening, you're not sleeping that night. Arkady and I started the day with a BOWL OF CRACK each. Mmm, sugary lardy crack. *bouncebouncebouncebouncebounce*

Pedant's note: it's technically a gelato variant, not "ice cream." I DON'T CARE. CRAAACK!